Ayatollah (Sign of God) Sadar

In the name of TRUTH

6/9/04

Peace,

If democracy were to breakout on a world wide scale, Ayatollah (Sign
of God) Sadar would be the leader of Iraq, Bush and Sharon would be
standing before a world court for crimes against humanity, and last
Sunday would be a world wide day of celebration because the known mass
murderer Ray-Gun had finally dropped dead!

(see news at bottom)

Nemo Me Impune Lacessit


Ali Andrew X98
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Waco Protest-April 19, 2004
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WACOun...ed/message/800
Cover-up Church.
http://www.public-action.com/SkyWrit...c/x98_rev.html
Interview with Carol A. Valentine.
http://www.public-action.com/SkyWrit...age/b_kce.html
Video
http://www.geocities.com/iamx98/psa.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~aliandrewx98/pigslayer.wmv
http://home.earthlink.net/~aliandrewx98/tpigslayer.wmv
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Cleric al-Sadr gains political ground among Iraqis

By TOM LASSETER

Knight Ridder Newspapers


NAJAF, Iraq - After months of losing hundreds, if not thousands, of
men in battles with the U.S. military, firebrand cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr appears to be more popular than ever in Iraq.

American coalition leaders were optimistic that last week's truce
calling for al-Sadr to move his men out of the holy cities of Najaf
and Kufa was a sign of a weakened leader.

But many Iraqi religious and political leaders say al-Sadr's public
appeal is higher than ever and that he and his followers seem poised
to gain ground in Iraq's political arena, threatening America's plans
for the country.

If elections were held today, polls and interviews on the street
suggest, the virulently anti-American al-Sadr would command a big
percentage of the vote.

In a recent poll of 1,640 Iraqis across the country, by the Iraq
Center for Research and Strategic Studies, the numbers for those who
either somewhat or strongly supported al-Sadr were higher than those
of the new prime minister and a long list of other high-ranking Iraqi
government officials. More striking was that support for al-Sadr was
just 2.8 percentage points behind the 70 percent polled by the
established Shiite Muslim leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al
Sistani.

And that, some in Iraq say, was al-Sadr's goal, and America's
miscalculation, all along.

U.S. military and civilian officials misread al-Sadr's intentions: In
the long term, he was interested in grabbing a leadership position,
not cities, said Redha Jawad Taki, a spokesman for the Supreme Council
for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the seminal Islamic groups in
the country.

"Absolutely, he was trying to take more power in Najaf to get
political position," Taki said.

Any doubts about al-Sadr's success were erased Saturday, when he was
invited to meet with al Sistani, who in the past had sought to
distance himself from the young cleric. Many saw the meeting as a
stamp of legitimacy for al-Sadr, who's long been on the fringes of the
political process.

During the past year, his name has been linked to the killings and
attempted murder of several rival clerics who espoused a more
conciliatory stance than his own. He faces an arrest warrant for
alleged involvement in the murder of moderate cleric Abdul Majid al
Khoei, who was stabbed to death in April 2003 at the Najaf shrine.

But al-Sadr has become a folk hero of sorts to many in Iraq.

"He was behaving in a way that the majority of Iraqis sympathize
with," said Hamid Fadhel Hassan, a political science professor at
Baghdad University. "His leadership is not from appointment by the
Americans, it is from the people."

When the new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, announced Monday that every
major militia but al-Sadr's would be dissolved, an al-Sadr spokesman
said they wouldn't put down their guns until the Americans left.

Al-Sadr's popular backing started because of his father, a grand
ayatollah who was murdered by Saddam Hussein, but his stature has
grown into something much bigger, Hassan said. Al-Sadr, Hassan said,
has become the man willing to stand up to the Americans while, in a
lot of Iraqis' eyes, other leaders have been co-opted as puppets.

While some in Najaf's religious establishment reportedly were
privately upset with al-Sadr, the sight of hundreds of his militiamen
swarming the street made it clear that he should be brought into the
fold, said Walid al Shahib Hilli, a spokesman for the al Da'waa Party,
one of Iraq's main Islamic organizations.

During the fighting in the south by al-Sadr's Mahdi Army - named for a
Shiite imam who promised to return and lead Muslims to victory one day
- Sistani was quiet about whether he supported the militiamen with
their AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

Many observers suspected that while Sistani disapproved of the
rabble-rousing cleric, he couldn't speak against him openly, for fear
of looking as though he were aiding the Americans.

When the Americans shut down al-Sadr's newspaper, accusing it of
inciting violence, then arrested a key aide, his militia began taking
over towns.

Hilli, the Da'waa Party spokesman, said American officials already had
set the stage for al-Sadr's rebellion when they left him off the
U.S.-appointed Governing Council, though there were some reports that
al-Sadr had refused to participate.

They erred again last week by excluding him from the newly formed
interim government, Hilli said.

"When you are strong like Muqtada al-Sadr, and he is ignored, of
course he will show he is strong," Hilli said. "If the American
administration had given him a place, he would not have had to do
this."

On the same day that last Friday's truce was announced, al-Sadr
supporters stormed the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf - one of the holiest
sites in all of Shiite Islam - during Friday prayers and heckled the
prayer leader, al-Sadr al din Kubanchi. They also made thinly veiled
insults toward Sistani.

One man in the crowd, to the approval of those around him, yelled that
"Kubanchi is an agent of Israel," an incendiary accusation in Iraq.

"X98" wrote in message
...


In the name of TRUTH

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